^ Chapter 29 - Blood Battle ^
An explosion of debris rocked the Kyōgōku House, causing a shower of wood to rain down onto the roof of the adjacent building and the street below. Anyone that was close to or directly between the buildings felt the strength of the blast, either getting blown to the ground or off to the side by the resounding shockwave it created.
From the smoke created by it, a figure leaped out from the clouds onto the adjacent building and landed amongst the debris, stepping on a piece of wood and shattering it with one step. The dust drifted off the person's body, revealing Warabihime with a completely different outfit than the Oiran one she was previously wearing. With her black hair now let loose down her back, the hairpins remaining where they were, her eyes shifted into that of a demon's, revealing her Upper Rank status with the two tattoos in her pupils, as well as a pink flower-like tattoo on her cheek. Her body was also shown off more in her new revealing two-piece version of her kimono, and her fangs grew in size as she growled at the gaping hole that used to be her room. A shadowy figure appeared in the smoke, before it drifted away to reveal the cloaked figure again, who's fierce attack had caused the explosion. Their sword was neither seen nor did it appear to have even been drawn, which had surprised Warabihime in the split second she had to avoid the attack.
"Who the fuck is this guy?! Is he a Hashira?!" she thought angrily as the figure leaped across the gap between her building at the Kyōgōku House, landing a few yards away from her. She got even more ticked off at how this person, whoever they were, refused to show who they were to her because of the hood obscuring their identity. "Who the hell are you even?! You a Demon Slayer? A Hashira?"
The figure stayed silent, their stance widening a little bit as the soft ka-chink of a sword getting flicked out of the sheath came from beneath their cloak, followed by an almost silent breath being sucked in.
"Tsuki no kokyū, Ni no kata...Shuka no Rōgetsu!" exclaimed the figure before with several rapid slashes a barrage of chaotic crescent moon shaped blades of white energy rocketed towards Warabihime.
"Shit!" she exclaimed before leaping to the right to dodge the blades, the roof where she had been standing exploding again into a fountain of debris and smoke. "So you want to kill me, huh? Is that what you want?! You do know who you're messing with, right!?"
"Daki of the Twelve Kizuki, rank...Upper Moon Six." the figure murmured, their blade remaining out this time, its dark blade metal twinkling a little in the moonlight.
Warabihime, or Daki as it had been revealed, narrowed her eyes and growled at her assailant, her own stance widening somewhat as the sashes of her obi became alive, stretching out from around her waist like the tentacles of an octopus. She checked to make sure that the other sections he had placed elsewhere in the Red Light District were secure, before focusing again on the figure and clenching her fists.
"Good for you, you're not a dumbass. Who the hell do you think you are?" Daki demanded of the figure, her eyes resting on their blade.
She was definitely certain now that it was a Demon Slayer, and it seemed as though this person had the strength and awareness of a Hashira in order to detect her. Now the only thing she had to figure out was who exactly this person was, and discover any other information that they had on her before killing them.
Daki never liked to be interrupted or intruded upon when she was busy with something, and Zenitsu had done it once before, followed by those other two girls from the Kyōgōku house. Now she was being attacked by this joker? She was beyond irritated now, there was going to be blood running down the streets of the Red Light District tonight.
"I'm gonna rip that fucking cloak off you so I can see your face as I kill you…" Daki snarled before she rushed the figure, their sword coming up to defend against her.
At the same time, a delirious Zenitsu picked himself up off the floor of Daki's destroyed room and shook off the dazed feeling in order to tend to the girl next to him. A wooden ceiling tile had fallen onto her because of the blast, managing to only scrape by her forehead and leave a cut above her right eye. Thankfully that was the fullest extent of her injuries, which meant he didn't have to take long in sending her out of the room and picking himself up to look out from the hole.
He could see Daki and the mysterious assailant wailing at one another on the adjacent building's roof, sending ceiling tiles flying off in all directions from their furious attacks and sheer strength. What Daki didn't know quite yet, and Zenitsu already knew thanks to his hearing, was that the sound of the figure was exceedingly different than the Upper Moon's, but almost exactly the same at the same time. It was a demon that was attacking her, but what confused him the most was how he could see the other demon's blade seemed to be pitch black.
"Why is their sword that color? The only black blade I've ever seen was…" Zenitsu started to think to himself before he watched Daki unleash a flurry of sash tendrils that seemed to overwhelm the individual from all sides.
Their cloak was shredded to pieces, with Daki expecting to see the same kind of results with the figure's body. She waited for blood to spew out from the cuts she made through the cloak, but to her surprise she saw nothing of the sort, save for a brief glimpse of dark red here and there. She presumed it was blood that was dripping down their skin, obscuring the flesh beneath, but in a flash the figure cut through her sashes with ease and freed themselves from their confinement.
That action led to the pieces of their shredded cloak to fly off, revealing a young man with a sleeveless green and black checkered haori and baggy black pants. Daki's eyes widened when she saw the person's skin was covered entirely in a dark maroonish red metallic layer of sorts, where the moon light reflected off of it to make it seem as if they were some kind of machine.
Daki knew that it was no metal, she could smell the stench of demonic blood oozing off the person as they lifted their head up towards her. They had a pair of curved horns that sprouted from their forehead, their shoulder length black and red hair blowing slightly in the soft breeze. Starting at their horns, the armor of sorts that had left them completely unscathed phased back into their skin, confirming Daki's theory about it being blood. As it did, the first thing Daki noticed was the prominent flame-like scar that was on the young man's forehead, which was then immediately superseded once they opened their eyes.
"W-What the hell? How did you get those eyes!?" Daki stammered while pointing an accusing finger at the young man, their expression remaining unchanged despite the acidity of her tone.
On the opposite hand, Zenitsu's reaction was completely different. The yellow-haired slayer was completely frozen in place, his gaze set in stone on the back of the person's head. Six months had passed since the last time he saw that hair and that sword, six months since he had seen the green and black checkered haori of his friend.
"T...Tanjirō…" Zenitsu uttered, his feet remaining firmly rooted to the ground as he watched his friend begin to slowly walk around in a circle with Daki.
The Upper Moon growled to herself as she kept her gaze leveled on Tanjirō, her eyes specifically focused on his. Staring back at her was an exact replica of the same tattoos she had on her eyes, only instead of the color black, they were as white as the slit pupils he once had.
Tanjirō kept his blade leveled towards her, his breaths almost nonexistent, his movements slow and methodical without a single wasted motion. There were no gaps at all in his stance, none that even Daki could find, leaving her at a loss to try and figure out how best to approach the demon slayer. She could hardly focus either because she had been rattled by the sudden attack and the sight of Tanjirō having her designation of "Upper Moon Six" tattooed onto his eyes.
Being caught off guard was not something she enjoyed, almost just as much as she hated people interrupting her. It pissed her off to see some sort of pretender in front of her, having her rank in the Twelve Kizuki tattooed onto their eyes. It made her so angry that she didn't even give herself the chance to think about how it could have happened. She was about to blow a gasket if it weren't for a voice in the back of her head telling her to think more clearly.
Begrudgingly listening to the voice, she took a breath in order to calm herself down, and within a split second she figured out for herself who could have possibly done such a thing to Tanjirō's eyes.
"You...he did that to you, didn't he...you bastard, is this what I think it is? Are you actually challenging me to a Blood Battle?" asked Daki, before she clutched her gut and started to laugh at Tanjirō.
He remained perfectly silent and let Daki finish her laughter, the Upper Moon wiping a metaphorical tear from her eye before baring her fanged teeth at him as her sashes squirmed and twitched around her like venomous snakes ready to strike.
This was going to be his toughest challenge yet, he knew that. Even though some part of him that he couldn't quite identify was giving him a funny feeling, he pushed that aside and focused on what was in front of him. He was not going to lose.
"You look cute, I'll give you that. But you're ugly at the same time…" remarked Daki with a hiss as she hunched over somewhat, her fingernails growing out a tiny bit to become claws. "I'm going to enjoy gouging out those eyes of yours and stringing you up until its day out so I can watch you burn!"
With that she disappeared, Tanjirō narrowing her eyes before he ducked to the side and deflected several of Daki's sashes with his sword as the Upper Moon attacked him full force. Skillfully and with utter calm he parried each and every blow of her's, waiting for an opening in her barrage to make his counterattack.
By that time Zenitsu had already left the area entirely, going as quickly as he could to one of the other two houses, where he ended up running right into Tengen on his way towards the sound of the battle.
"What's the situation there? I heard a couple of explosions, has the demon exposed itself?" questioned Tengen, his hands already reaching back for his twin blades.
"Enough screwing around! I'm tired of waiting!"
Inosuke roared as he appeared as well, his women's clothing already shed for his usual bare-chested attire. He once again donned his pig mask and held both of his swords firmly, ready to slash through any obstacle that got in his way.
"G-Guys, wait! We can't go there! I don't even know if we should!" sputtered Zenitsu, stopping the two of them before they could go anywhere.
"What the hell are you going on about?" Tengen questioned sternly.
"The demon, it's...she was one of the Oirans, of my house! She's an Upper Moon!"
Inosuke choked a little on his own breath and Tengen's expression turned dead serious, his gaze lifting up past Zenitsu towards where the battle between Tanjirō and Daki was raging on unrestrained with little regard for property damage.
He searched deep within his soul and he couldn't help but mentally sock himself in the jaw for the decisions he made, including bringing those two and Aoi here to the den of an Upper Moon. He felt somewhat ashamed, but he didn't let Inosuke or Zenitsu see that, his only exterior reaction to the news outside the expression change was the clenching of his hands into tight fists. No more mistakes, not now. Lives were at stake.
"I've made a terrible mistake bringing you two here with the girl. The desire to save my wives clouded my judgement, and now I've brought you here to the den of an Upper Moon, who is way out of your league." Tengen said, Zenitsu's eyes widening at the shocking bout of humility coming from the self-proclaimed most flamboyant member of the Hashira. "Both of you, find the girl and get out of here, now. Neither of you can't deal with one."
"Fuck that! I spent too much time restricted in those clothes to just run! We're staying here, you old geezer!" countered Inosuke with a snarl, steam shooting out from his boar head's nostrils.
"And the demon right now is fighting someone else!"
Both Tengen and Inosuke turned to look at Zenitsu, who's shout had caught the attention of the two. Zenitsu gulped a little, suddenly afraid by their stares, but he quickly swallowed that and pointed back to the battle from which he had come, his eyes specifically going to Inosuke.
"That's right, the Upper Moon is fighting someone else. Something about a blood battle...I don't know what that's about, but from what I heard, it has something to do about the other person challenging them for their position."
"A rivalry between demons? That could explain the constantly changing ranks in the Twelve Kizuki...who is this other demon?" asked Tengen while rubbing his chin, Inosuke lowering his arms as he saw the look in Zenitsu's eyes.
"I know who…" he muttered, Zenitsu's mouth closing as he too lowered his arm and glanced at the ground. "It's Gonpachiro, isn't it?"
"Gonpachi-who?" asked Tengen with a confused look on his face.
"It's Tanjirō, you dolt!"
Zenitsu smacked Inosuke across the face, knocking him flat onto his back and causing the boy to snarl back at him after leaping back to his feet. Tengen glared at him to shut him up before returning his gaze back to Zenitsu, who looked up at the taller man and gave him a regretful, but serious nod to confirm his statement.
He told them of what he saw, how Tanjirō was the one to attack the Upper Moon in her room at the Kyōgōku House, and that it was Tanjirō currently engaging the demon in a fierce battle directly across from said house. Zenitsu also told Tengen specifically how his hearing allowed him to figure out that something was wrong with Tanjirō, how he sounded somewhat like his old self, but was entirely different and more similar to the sound of the Upper Moon at the same time.
Through his explanation Tengen listened rather tentatively, analyzing every bit of information the younger slayer was telling him in order to come up with his own decision. He knew that Tanjirō, who had gone missing six months prior, was a prime suspect in the mystery surrounding Kyōjurō's injuries and subsequent coma. At the same time, however, if he was keeping the demon occupied for them, they could go to work finding his wives and rescuing any other possible victims that had been caught without their knowledge during their time there.
"Okay, that's all I need to hear. I've got a plan, and if you two are adamant on staying here, then listen up. I'm only going to say this once." Tengen said as he squatted down next to the two younger slayers, staring at both of them. Zenitsu and Inosuke came close, leveling their gazes on him so they could both see and hear what he had to say. "Both of you, find the girl and ensure her safety, while I will search for my wives. I want you to be vigilant and on the lookout in both her house and your's, boar kid, because I might have figured out how the demon could have acted without being seen."
"What was it? Invisibility? They had to have been blending in as a human, considering how much traffic that goes in and out of the district." said Zenitsu, Tengen shaking his head before motioning towards the ground and pointing at the dirt roads.
"Passages. There might be underground passages that connect the houses together. That way the demon could operate between all three locations and not be seen."
"Eugh! That could be why I couldn't find it!" exclaimed Inosuke suddenly. "I sensed it was there where I was, but I couldn't find it! It went up into the ceiling and disappeared on me!"
"That confirms it then. With that in mind, there is a possibility that my wives, and any other victims that the demon captured, could still be alive. Find the passageways, we find the victims. Got it?"
"Got it!"
With their plan solidified, Tengen left the two in the blink of an eye to pursue his part of the plan while Zenitsu and Inosuke hurried their way to the Tokito House. When they managed to find their way there and get inside, they were met with quite a surprise when right past the doorway they found Aoi standing there with Kanao and Shinobu right there beside her, swords drawn.
"Uuegh?! Bug lady?!" gasped Inosuke, the Insect Hashira turning her head and giving the two of them one of her warm smiles and a wave.
"What are you guys doing here?!" asked Zenitsu, Kanao walking past them to the door and checking rhey weren't followed before closing it shut behind them.
"We were following you since your departure and camped on the outskirts of the city. As soon as we heard the explosions, we came running as fast as we could and managed to find Aoi first among you three. Where's Uzui-san?" explained Shinobu as she sheathed her blade.
"Off on his own, searching for his wives. We think they might have been captured by the demon here."
"What kind of demon is it?"
Inosuke and Zenitsu briefed the three about what they had talked about with Tengen, including the details about the demon being an Upper Moon and how their three target houses must have some sort of transit system linking them together for the demon to use. When the explosions were brought up by Shinobu, Zenitsu bit his lip a little and almost didn't tell her, before he sighed and spilled the beans.
Both Shinobu and Kanao were rendered speechless by the revelation that Tanjirō was the one fighting the Upper Moon alone. It was even more than that. Just the fact that Zenitsu saw him, and that he was here, right now in the Red Light District, was enough to make their jaws drop to the floor in surprise.
Shinobu almost wanted to go off as fast as she could to him, but she knew she had to restrain herself and remain calm. That time would come, there were more pressing matters to attend to. At that time Zenitsu finally noticed how she was wearing Tanjirō's earrings and that Nezuko's box was strung onto her back, but he didn't question it and instead looked to Aoi after their explanation had ended.
"Aoi-san, this isn't your fight. Find somewhere safe to hide and stay there. We'll all handle this." he said, Aoi quickly nodding her head before leaving Shinobu's side.
"Kanao, go with Inosuke to the Ogimoto House and try to find the passages that Uzui-san believes to exist. Be careful, and watch each other's backs. Zenitsu, you'll help me here at the Tokito House. Go!"
Inosuke and Kanao raced to the door in order to depart, but before he left Inosuke looked back at Zenitsu and grunted as he tossed the latter his sword, the yellow-haired slayer blinking and starting to ask where he had it before Inosuke vanished without a trace. He shook his head and opened up the kimono he was wearing to reveal his Demon Slayer Corps uniform underneath, his sword instantly going to his belt before he turned and nodded at Shinobu.
She nodded back and the pair delved into the bowls of the Tokito House, running past anyone that they came across as they searched the entire establishment from top to bottom for any signs of a secret passage that a demon could use.
Tengen's eyes darted back and forth as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop as silent as a cat, searching for the brothel that the owner of the Kyōgōku House had stated his wife was at. Holding a kunai knife to the man's throat had proved effective in getting him to spill the beans, as well as a reassurance that he'd avenge the losses their house had sustained. Finally he found the brothel he was searching for, and immediately sensed a disturbance from inside, which caused some veins on his bulked up arms to bulge out.
Quick as lighting he slipped inside and ran straight for one of the rooms, bursting through the door and immediately bringing out some more kunai to slash at a brightly colored, flower mark emblazoned sash that was threatening a woman inside who was coughing quite vigorously. In quick order, Tengen subdued the demonic essence reeking sash by pinning it to one of the room's walls with a dozen kunai, the demon's blood contained within it oozing out from the wounds. The woman lifted her head up to gaze upon her savior and a wave of relief washed over her once she was in Tengen's embrace, his expression softening as their eyes met.
"Tengen-sama, you're here, I-" she started, but was soon stopped when Tengen gently shushed her and shook his head.
"Rest, Hinatsuru, take this first." he said as he produced a small pill from one of the pouches on his belt.
Hinatsuru, one of his three wives, coughed and nodded as she opened her mouth to allow him to give her the pill, since he knew exactly what she had done to herself based off her breath alone. She had realized that Warabihime-Oiran was a demon, but she couldn't make a move in order to expose her because the demon grew very suspicious of her.
In order to give herself a way out of the Kyōgōku House, she drank poison and faked an illness that would allow her to be sent to Kirisime, a low-class brother where customers never go to and where prostitutes who get sick are sent to recover. From the demon sash he deduced that the demon must have given it to her in order to observe her and, if her suspicions were proved true, to kill her in order to prevent her identity from being revealed.
"Tengen-sama, don't mind me...just go ahead. You must know what's happened already, that sound a while ago...the demon is-"
"I do know, I know...are you sure you'll be okay, though?" Tengen replied, his concern for her showing clearly on his face.
"Yes...I'm very sorry for not being of any use."
Tengen closed his eyes for a moment, the sight of his wife tearing up for her apparent uselessness to him causing his heart to ache deep in his chest. He held her close against his body and did that for a minute or two, thankful for just being able to feel her warmth again.
Once he had his fill and the call of duty prompted him to let go, he told her to leave Yoshiwara as soon as the antidote he gave her took effect. He didn't want her to risk her life any more, now that the threat was confirmed to be one of the strongest demons in Japan. With a pained expression of regret, Hinatsuru agreed to his statement, prompting Tengen to hug her one last time before darting out of the room to continue his search.
As he was running across the rooftops, his senses on high alert for the tiniest possible trace of either his other two wives or the victims, he sensed a demonic presence exceptionally close by even though he was nowhere near the demon's actual location. He shot himself down towards the ground and landed in a vacant street, his eyes staring straight down at the ground beneath his feet. Tengen then dropped down to his chest and pressed his ear against the ground, his eyes widened as he heard the sounds of battle coming from deep under the earth.
"That's the sound of fighting, I can really hear the reverberations. There's a huge cave underground, but the tunnels that lead to it are so narrow that little kids could get through." he thought, his arms tensing up as he raised himself to his feet and reached back to grip the handles of his twin swords.
With muscles bulging and veins popping, the bandages wrapped around his swords came free as he pulled them loose from his back and held them high in the air. He let out a steady breath before focusing all of his strength into his arms and hands, with the blades themselves beginning to hum and vibrate with a whining hum.
"Oto no kokyū, Ichi no kata: Todoroki!" he murmured as he brought his weapons crashing down onto the ground to create a powerful explosion of concentrated power and sound.
The result was a huge plume of dirt and rock getting blasted outward at rapid speeds immediately following a sound akin to the deafening roar of thunder.
Back near the heart of the Red Light District, the battle between Tanjirō and Daki was reaching a whole new level of intensity, which had led to the building they were originally fighting on getting turned to mostly rubble. That moved them to the street between the buildings, where the violence only continued as the two demons hammered away at one another.
Daki grunted as she leaped away from another sword slash by Tanjirō who in turn countered several of her sashes by coating the entire right side of his body in his blood armor to leave him completely unscathed. She silently cursed this Blood Demon Art of his, since it made him practically invulnerable to any of her attacks when he could see them.
She had managed to land a few blows on him here and there, when she had overwhelmed him with the sheer amount of sashes she could make, but those superficial injuries were healed rapidly and gone in seconds.
"This is getting annoying, to be fighting a Blood Battle like this…and what was that sound? What are those other bugs doing?" Daki muttered while glancing off to the side somewhat, Tanjirō eying her calmly with his blade angled down at his side. "Dammit, they got to Hinatsuru...I don't have time for this!"
She glared at Tanjirō and placed a hand on her hip, raising one eyebrow as she pointed at him and his sword, which he had already noticed was chipping near the edges because of the strength he was putting behind his attacks against her durable flesh sashes.
"Oi, there's Demon Slayers in this city right now, you know. Having a Blood Battle would be pretty counterintuitive to killing them, you think? And besides, your blade is already chipped." she pointed out, Tanjirō's eyes refraining from looking at the sword. "Whoever forged that thing must have been a pretty crappy blacksmith, assuming you were one of those slayers yourself before turning."
For some reason, a response in the back of Tanjirō's mound was triggered by Daki's words and his hands tightened around his black sword's grip. The tip shook slightly from how firm he was holding it, and after a few seconds of silence he growled a little and bared his own fangs at the Upper Moon, his eyes narrowing at the same time.
"No...they're not." he snarled, before he sheathed the blade quickly, Daki's body immediately tensing up. "Tsuki no kokyū, Ichi no kata: Yamizuki - Yoi no miya!"
Daki leap-frogged onto the roof of a building to her right as the storm of chaotically spinning moon-shaped blades came firing off from Tanjirō's Iaido-style slash, the damage they caused tearing apart the ground and the walls of the buildings the blades struck. After the attack subsided, she leaped right at him and attacked once more with her sashes, causing Tanjirō to take a few steps back as he parried before he dropped low to his feet and spun around as water began to cascade out of his blade.
Not expecting him to be able to use another Breathing Style, she barely avoided having her legs chopped off from the knee down by Tanjirō's technique, the Upper Moon backflipping to safety a few meters away. Tanjirō didn't let her have any respite and immediately stopped his technique, stamped his foot into the ground, and rushed down Daki with his eyes coldly set on her as the water immediately burst into flames, briefly taking the form of a roaring dragon that made Daki gasp loudly.
"Hinokami Kagura: Enbu!" Tanjirō bellowed, the flaming sword slash coming within inches of touching Daki, instead slicing clean through several of her sashes that she maneuvers to act as a shield from the searing hot flames.
"What the hell is with this guy?! First moon blades, then water, and now f-fire?!" Daki thought frantically as Tanjirō pressed his advantage, pushing Daki back with a brutal series of attacks involving both Water Breathing and the Hinokami Kagura, both of which got closer and closer to doing serious damage to her.
As this was going on, steam started to roll off his skin as his internal body temperature continued to rise each and every time he used the Hinokami Kagura, a feeling in the back of his mind continuing him onward.
It was as if a powerful and passionate voice was cheering him on, telling him to keep cranking up the heat against Daki, to continue to push up to and through his limits to beyond.
"Hinokami Kagura: Retsujitsu Kōkyō!" Tanjirō bellowed, his flaming sword slashing through two pairs of sashes that tried to attack him from the front and side.
"Didn't you hear me dumbass?! There are Demon Slayers here, our enemies! This isn't the damn time to have a Blood Battle!"
Tanjirō didn't bother to respond, instead recovering from her attack and rushing her down yet again with his sword, the flames dissipating as he sucked in another breath and turned the blade sideways.
"Tsuki no kokyū, Shichi no kata: Yakkyō - Zukibae." he said calmly before delivering a powerful frontal slash, unleashing a devastating multi-directional frontal assault on Daki with the produced moon blades.
"Gyaaaghh!" Daki cried out as the storm of blades attacked her body from all angles, shredding her sashes into bits of blood flesh before she was dropped to the ground once the attack ended.
Her wounds only had just begun to heal back up before Tanjirō was right in her face, his cold, almost empty gaze piercing through to her heart as he swept his blade around and consumed it with fire once more as he used the Hinokami Kagura to go straight for her neck.
"Where is it, where is it?" Inosuke asked himself as he went on a rampage within the Ogimoto House, using his head and his fists to smash through the ceiling and floor of the brothel, a sweat-dropping Kanao following close behind him.
She had to admire his devotion to trying to find the passages that linked the Ogimoto House with the other two locations, but she believed there was at least a more reserved method than just simply smashing through every visible surface imaginable. The women and other staff members of course kept their distance and ran away at the sight of Inosuke's muscular figure and boar head, believing him to be a monster, which worked out in their favor.
Eventually Inosuke's foot smashed through the wooden flooring down one of the hallways and he laughed out loud when a small hole was revealed beneath the splintered floorboards. Kanao sheathed her sword upon seeing the hole, while Inosuke laughed for another few seconds before turning to her as if to showcase his handiwork like a child would to their parents.
"Guahahah! Here's the hole to the demon's nest! The tingles are all here, there's definitely something down here!" he proclaimed, Kanao smiling a tiny bit and nodding before she peered at the hole.
It was definitely too small for someone like her to crawl into, even though she herself wasn't that very big of a person, but that wouldn't stop someone as hard-headed as Inosuke from trying anyways. With a battlecry he launched himself at the hole, his head burying itself inside of it as he tried to force his way downwards, only to be met with stiff resistance from the earth itself.
"Gah, only my head can fit through!" Inosuke growled after hopping back up, his hands going to his hips as he thought for a moment.
"Perhaps there's another way in?" Kanao suggested, the boar-headed slayer grunting before he shook his head.
"How naive. Nothing can withstand the great Inosuke-sama."
Suddenly his body began to make loud snapping and popping noises as he began dislodging his bones from their proper places, turning himself into a terrifying ragdoll of sorts that made Kanao cover her mouth and gag a little from the sound alone.
She had seen demons and killed them with her sword, and had never been one to shrug away from the sight of blood or death, but this was definitely something she felt aversion towards. Seeing Inosuke bent and contort every single limb and digit on his body made her want to close her eyes and look away, but even then she wondering if that would even help because of the sounds that each bone made as it was twisted out of proportion.
"As the man who can dislodge every joint in my body, if I can get my head in there, I can go anywhere!"
Inosuke then threw his head back down into the hole and with a series of pops he started frantically wriggling himself down into the hole, yelling back at Kanao to go to the "bug lady" and tell her to find the "geezer" so that they can meet him down in the demon's den. Understanding who he meant by those titles, Kanao nodded and darted off, intent on finding Shinobu first since she'd be the nearest at the Tokito house, and from there they could find Tengen.
As she did that, Inosuke continued to push himself further and further down the hole with his head leading the way, the pops and cracks of his dislocated joints following behind him. He could sense he was getting closer and closer to the demon's presence, before finally his disjointed body was shot upward from a hole right into a large underground cavern that was filled with a web of sashes strung up from wall to wall up to the ceiling.
"What the hell...what is all of this?" Inosuke thought as he landed on his feet, his bones starting to go back in place piece by piece as he looked around. He could spot dozens of other holes bored out of the walls of the cavern, which he figured were like the one he just crawled out of, before he then noticed that contained within the sashes strewn about the room were the images of people, both male and female. "Human patterned cloth? The fuck? Wait...no, this sensation, these are living humans."
Inosuke gripped his right arm and twisted it back into place as he walked forward to examine the cloth more closely, stepping over human bones that were on the cavern ground. Once glance at those told him they had to be the remains of those unfortunate enough to be caught by the demon, never to be seen again, and it made him seethe under his boar head.
"So the demon's sealing the women it catches inside this band, then it can eat them whenever it likes…"
"What are you doing here?"
Inosuke felt a tingle run up and down his spine and he whirled around, his eyes widened as he saw the sash twitch, one of the ends coming up and sprouting a pair of demonic eyes and a wretched looking mouth that stared at him.
"Dirty, stinky maggot, entering someone else's store room!"
"What is up with this thing? What the fuck!?"
Inosuke snarled as he and the demon sash engaged one another, the worm-like creature lashing out at him from every single angle imaginable, but failing to even come close to injuring the beast-like slayer.
Thanks to his enhanced sensory perception, he could see the attacks coming from a mile away and properly counter by slashing through the flesh fabric like it was butter, conveniently around the humans trapped inside of it.
"You keep squirming and squirming! You're just a gross maggot sash!" bellowed Inosuke as he flipped around end over end, then slashed through a portion of the sash around another trapped woman with a boisterous laugh. "Guwahaha! You move so slow! Looks like someone got greedy and captured too many humans! Get your act together and try to come at me again, you fat maggot!"
Piece by piece, sections of the sash fell from its body, freeing the trapped victims from the portions Inosuke hacked off and irritating the demon sash even more. It was healing itself easily enough, but it couldn't do anything to stop Inosuke from freeing the humans it had captured for consumption later.
Inosuke's senses were also top notch, enabling him to sense the bloodlust of the demon sash before it could even get close enough to harm him, where the only result was another part of its body getting hacked off. It didn't matter if he attacked from the front, the side, the rear, or all of them at once, Inosuke's perception enabled him to see through everything the sash threw at him and counter it with maximum efficiency. If it didn't do something now, Inosuke was going to free every single trapped piece of food contained within the sash's body.
"Take him alive. That's the guy who got in the way when I captured Makio. he was beautiful." said a voice in sash demon's mind, its eyes widening as a mental image of Daki appeared. Her eyes were wide with anger, but not directed towards the demon sash itself. "Use the preserved humans to your full advantage. You may kill any of them except for the ten prettiest ones. If you need to, eat some of the humans there to give yourself enough power to capture him."
"Raaaagh!" Inosuke cried out at the top of his lungs, his battlecry drawing the sash demon out of its thoughts just in time to stare the charging slayer down.
As his jagged swords struck the body of the demon sash, instead of cutting through like previously, they pushed and tugged the sashes body off to the side harshly without breaking through.
He gasped, wondering if it was because of the sash's squirming that he wasn't able to cut through, before he noticed part of its body coming right towards him, so he leaped away to avoid being ensnared by the creature. Inosuke then flipped himself around and found himself face to face with the "head" of the sash demon, its eyes widening when the slayer positioned both of his swords on either side of it.
"Kedamono no kokyū, Roku no kiba: Ran gui gami!" bellowed Inosuke, his blades coming from either side towards where he assumed the sash demon's neck would be.
"There's no point in cutting me. I'm not the real body after all." the demon stated, Inosuke's eyes widening slightly, his hesitation causing his attack to slow down just enough for the sash demon to snake to the side and avoid the decapitating blow. "But more importantly, you worked so hard to save those girls. You sure it's okay to neglect them?"
Inosuke gasped and immediately he was aware once again of the girls and other victims that had been freed from the sash by his cuts earlier, a quick glance over his shoulder showing him the unconscious women were about to be attacked and most likely absorbed by separate portions of the sash's body.
He cursed to himself, his body almost freezing in midair when he realized he'd have to split his focus between attacking the demon while protecting the victims from being recaptured or worse. Suddenly, in the middle of his indecisiveness, several kunai were thrown from the side at the sashes, pinning them to the ground and stopping them from moving entirely. Footsteps followed soon after and Inosuke watched as two women stepped between any other sashes coming down from those that still draped the walls of the cavern and the unconscious women.
"'Maggot sash', huh? Couldn't have put it better myself!" said the woman with black hair and brown bangs that framed her face, the second woman looking more terrified than her yet still standing side by side with her.
"That thing is so gross, you're so right! It's disgusting!" she added on while her teeth clattered lightly.
"We'll back you up, so good luck there boar head!"
The two women, showcasing rather proficient skills with the kunai they were wielding, began to fend off other portions of the sash demon's large body as Inosuke continued his fight with the main body. This didn't stop the slayer from obnoxiously demanding who they were, before they introduced themselves as Tengen's other two wives, Makio being the wife with brown-colored bangs and Suma the scaredy-cat wife.
Inosuke grinned a little under his mask at the two of them, appreciating their help even though they couldn't see it, and assaulted the sash once more with every little ounce of his being. The sash growled to itself as it kept avoiding and blocking Inosuke's blades with its toughened hide, upset that it had been unable to devour any of the freed victims to increase its own strength. That's when it heard a noise of some kind come from above, like the sound of thunder, which confused it greatly because the cave was fairly deep underground with several layers of rock between it and the Red Light District above. At first nothing seemed to happen, and it assumed the sound had been something else, before suddenly the entire roof of the cavern exploded with a deafening boom which made Suma, Makio and Inosuke all flinch and shield themselves from the falling debris and shower of dirt that rained down onto them.
"What the hell?! A hole opened up?! How did someone manage to open up a hole from above ground!?" thought the demon sash as it recoiled from the blast, the debris shower ending soon after it began and blanketing the cavern ground in smoke and dust.
"What the…" he uttered, before a bright flash of yellow soon entered the cavern and dashed around from wall to wall.
Creating a sound like thunder, Inosuke boisterously laughed again as the sash's various other body sections were cut to shreds by the lightning-engulfed Zenitsu, who's Thunder Breathing made quick work of the flesh sash like it was nothing. Once his attack ended, three more distinct figures entered the cavern from the newly created hole in the ceiling. One was Kanao, the Tsuguko quickly running to the aid of the wives to act as their protection, whole the other two figures were obscured by the dust for a little while longer.
When the smoke finally began to settle, Makio and Suma were both treated to the sight of a serious-looking Tengen, swords out at the ready, with the smiling Shinobu, the two Hashira standing side by side as they surveyed the cavern's layout in the blink of an eye and nodded to one another.
"This presence…! They're both Hashira!" frantically thought the demon sash, before the two Hashira then turned invisible as they dashed around the cavern, slicing and dicing the demon's body time and time again until it was snowing sash fragments everywhere.
As soon as they had begun their assault, it ended with the sash demon reduced to dozens of pieces that littered the bone-covered floor of the cavern, where in the center of it all stood the still-smiling Shinobu and Tengen with his swords at his side. He had done most of the cutting, with Shinobu merely assisting by using her blade to poison individual pieces to prevent them from regenerating. Kanao smiled herself as well, and Zenitsu smirked a tiny bit as he jogged up to Inosuke, the two young men sharing a little laugh with one another at their victory.
"Quite frankly, I'd like to question you on how you and your ward are here right now, Kochō, but I could care less about that right now." said Tengen as he glanced down at the smallest Hashira and gave her a thumbs up. "Flamboyant as always."
"Pleasure to be of service, Uzui-san~" Shinobu replied as she adjusted Nezuko's box somewhat, still finding herself not quite yet used to carrying it.
At the same time, Suma and Makio were staring with wide eyes filled with relief and rapidly rising joy as they saw Tengen standing before them once again, after what seemed like the end of their lives had been staring them in the face when they had been captured. It was when Makio uttered Tengen's name that the Sound Hashira glanced their way and gave them both a wide grin as he came over to them, the chain connecting his swords together clinking with each step he took.
"Makio, Suma, sorry for being so late. It's time to put on a real flamboyant show." he said, their eyes widening even more, with some tears even developing in the corners of their eyes as he gave them a gentle pat on top of their head to congratulate them. "Seems like you did a flamboyant job here, I knew you could do it, my girls."
"Um, Uzui-san…" Shinobu murmured, the Sound Hashira turning his head to her voice.
In the blink of an eye, the dozens of severed pieces of the sash darted off in all directions into the various exit holes in the cavern, going off to who knows where without any resistance from the Demon Slayers what so ever.
"Ooooh nooo! They're gonna run off and reform again, then come back and kill us, or worse, they're gonna go back to that Upper Moon and then both of them are going to kill us!" screeched Zenitsu while clawing at his cheeks, both Kanao and Inosuke staring at him with blank expressions while Tengen sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"It doesn't matter right now, we were able to free the captured people, so that's still a success. If that sash comes back, it will just get cut up again anyways~" said Shinobu to calm the nerves of the frazzled yellow-haired slayer.
"Exactly. I trust you've been briefed about the situation occurring here, Kochō?" questioned Tengen.
"I have. Your wives can take the victims to Aoi at the Tokito House, which we secured before coming to you, so that way they'll be safe from harm."
With everyone in agreement, including Zenitsu and Inosuke joining the Hashira with little room for arguing, Maki and Suma were helped with gathering up the unconscious victims so that they could be transported while everyone else went towards the raging battle taking place on the other side of the Red Light District that was about to reach a whole new level.
Tanjirō's blade clashed with Daki's sashes yet again, the Upper Moon not holding back against him as the pair continued to exchange blows with one another when his earlier decapitation attempt failed. She had managed to dodge him just in time and get away with slicing off one of his arms, something he succeeded in healing in quick succession, before their fight entered a different part of the district.
He was about to use another breathing technique before both he and Daki's heads turned to the right at the sound of something fast approaching them, the thing being the reformed demon sash that plunged itself into Daki's body. In a matter of seconds she absorbed the entirety of the entity and before Tanjirō's very eyes her hair began to turn silver with green-colored tips, her skin developing crack-like features that made her appearance even more demonic. Hesitating for only a brief second at this new occurrence, Tanjirō swiped at Daki once again with his blade but only struck air, the Upper Moon vanishing without a trace.
Tanjirō lowered his blade and kept his composure as she slowly lifted his gaze up to one of the buildings on his left, spotting Daki laying down in a lounging position with a wicked smile on her face as her transformation was fully completed. She laughed at him as he stood there motionless, her eyes ablaze with fury and pride over him.
"If that person really did send you to challenge me...I'm going to prove just how pointless that was. He called me special, after all...and I'm not going to let you take that away from me." Daki said as she stood up, her long white and green hair flowing in the wind . Tanjirō narrowed his eyes somewhat, his nostrils receiving an even more sinister smell from the Upper Moon now that she had received the powers the demon sash contained.
"Hey, what are you doing there!"
Tanjirō slowly turned his head and gazed back at a man pointing at him, completely unaware of what was going on between him and Daki. He didn't say anything to interrupt the man when he started to ridicule him for arguing in front of the stores and living quarters surrounding them, where others had shown their faces to see what the commotion was about.
An immense amount of bloodlust then surged outward from Daki, and in a split second Tanjirō's body seemed to react on autopilot in a way that felt foreign to him. The sashes sprouting from Daki's lower back moved at blinding speeds, slicing through the ground, walls and windows of the nearby establishments beneath her. Tanjirō had managed to move in front of the man and block one of the sashes with his arm after covering it in his Iron Blood Armor, where a cut was still left in it and his arm, but the other humans around were not as lucky. As carved off pieces of the buildings feel downward into the street, the casualties were revealed to Tanjirō where several of the people who had come out just to see what was going on had been killed instantly by Daki's sashes, their flesh and bones cleaved clean through like they were made of butter.
From the screams of those who survived to see their loved ones or friends killed right before their very eyes, to the smirk on Daki's face as she stood up and turned her back on Tanjirō, a foreign sensation in the back of his mind suddenly awoke and he felt his body start to get hot. His hands gripped his sword tighter and his toes bunched up inside of his socks, his glare so intense it could burn holes into the back of Daki's head.
"...Where are you going?" he asked in a low tone, the Upper Moon turning back and frowning at him.
"Huh? You're still here? I've had enough of this foolish game. I've got bigger fish to fry than some pathetic blood battle between a nobody like you." replied Daki while waving her hand nonchalantly at him, before turning her attention to the humans and motioning to them. "Go ahead and eat those humans if you want, they're grotesque and have no value whatsoever outside of being food. They can rot in hell for all I care."
Tanjirō's eyes widened slightly and deep within the recesses of his mind and heart, he felt something that was so different yet familiar to him. In that split second, something snapped.
Shinobu and Tengen led the group of slayers through the Red Light District, leaping and bounding over the buildings on their way towards where the greatest concentration of demonic energy and bloodlust was present. She couldn't help but feel worried deep in the pit of her gut because she knew part of that presence was Tanjirō. It had been six whole months since she had last seen him and the warm smile on his face. How different will he be compared to then? Would he be friendly? Would he even remember them?
Regardless of what, she knew that in any case, if Tanjirō was able to take on an Upper Moon alone without any assistance, than that meant the letter that she had received before departing for the Red Light District had been correct. It had come from Kyōjurō's father, who wished to make amends with her because of his previous behavior with her during their first meeting. The letter had been so profound that she could recite it by memory easily, from the very beginning to the end.
"Kochō-san, I did something terrible to you. Thank you for worrying about my son, as well as his brother, and I heard that you had met with him a few other times since our first meeting over the past several months. He's gotten a lot better now. I recall how our first meeting ended up, with much shame. Just as I was beating myself up over my incompetence, as if to deal the finishing blow, my beloved wife succumbed to illness. After that I drowned my sorrows in alcohol. I was an unbelievably cowardly fool."
Shinobu skillfully leaped up the face of a building and joined Tengen on the roof, Kanao, Inosuke and Zenitsu joining them soon after as they saw Daki just a little ways away with her back turned away from them towards someone down in the street.
It took little imagination to wonder who it was she was staring down, and with a confirmation from Zenitsu and his hearing, they figured out exactly who it was. Tanjirō looked different, as was expected, but for what they witnessed next, it was like they were watching someone else entirely.
"Kyōjurō, unlike me, was an amazing son. After he abandoned what I taught him, he read through the instruction book of Flame Breathing, trained himself, and became a Hashira. Just a book with only three volumes. Ruka's...their mother's blood must be strong. As both Kyōjurō and Senjurō are wonderful sons. And of your missing friend, Kamado-san, from what you told me of him, he must have a power that's even more amazing. The red birthmark on their foreheads are their symbol, the chosen user of Sun Breathing, the original breath."
Daki turned her back on Tanjirō and hunched down slightly, her feet lifting up off the ground as she prepared to go hunt down the other insects in her city, before she felt a slight breeze hit her exposed skin from behind, followed by something immensely strong clamping down onto her ankle. Her eyes shot wide open and she whipped her head around only to stare into the wide open, emotionless gaze of Tanjirō, who's eyes were crying blood as he tightened his grip around her ankle and reared his blade back.
The Upper Moon gasped and reacted at the last second, her body wrenching itself in order to avoid being decapitated by Tanjirō, then willingly twisted her leg in such a fashion that she was able to free herself, leaving her ankle and part of her calf still in Tanjirō's death grip. She bounded backward and winced somewhat as she had to sit down and hold onto her leg, blood dripping from where her foot had been ripped clean off from escaping the slayer, who's eyes were set solely on her. The blood they were secreting rolled down his cheeks like tears, and his veins in his forehead and arms were bulging to the point they looked like they were going to burst.
His bloodlust was rapidly ascending, growing more and more devilish by the second, with his demonic features reacting to this in turn with the growing out of his nails into razor sharp claws, his fangs growing in size, and his horns growing and curling backward even more. His hair grew in length as well, until it reached his lower back to give him the appearance of some wild, savage animal. Flames escaped his lips as his body kept heating up from the very core of his being, while Daki snarled at him and instantly regrew her foot and flower petal design stocking she had on minus the footwear.
"This bastard's completely changed now, he's giving off a far different bloodlust than before. Why then did I not even sense him coming?!" she thought as she stood up and met Tanjirō's gaze, the demonic slayer hefting his sword onto his shoulder and discarding Daki's old foot. "Did he get upset by what I said? Why the hell would that happen, if he's a demon just like me?! It doesn't make sense!"
"...Do you enjoy killing? Do you take pleasure in taking the lives of others? In trampling on people's lives?" questioned Tanjirō as he began to slowly approach Daki, the flames escaping his lips lighting up his face and his blazing red eyes.
"Those words...I've heard them somewhere before...from where? From who?" Daki thought as she stood her ground, her pride as an Upper Demon preventing her from moving.
Suddenly her eyes shot wide open when Tanjirō was replaced by a different person entirely, of a man taller than her with dark maroon hair that was tied into a large ponytail, narrowed eyes that looked like a demon's and a large flame-like marking that spanned the left side of his forehead and surrounded his left eye.
Daki audibly gasped when she saw this, the figure's mouth moving with Tanjirō's as they spoke in unison, uttering the same things that her memories were somehow registering.
"What's so fun about it? What's so enjoyable? What do you think lives are?" they asked as one, Daki's entire body trembling as she finally did take a step back in terror of the figure. The unknown man and Tanjirō's image flickered back and forth with one another as they continued to approach her, the two's words like hot knives cutting right through her.
"Who is he? Why are they saying the same things..? These...these aren't my memories...they must not be mine." Daki thought while gripping her head, her jaw muscles clenching when she took control of herself and widened her stance to stand her ground. "How about you just shut up already? Whatever the hell you were just talking about means nothing to me. Compared to humans, demons don't age. We don't need money to eat. We don't fall sick. We don't die. We don't lose anything. And strong, beautiful demons can do anything…!"
Tanjirō's eyes narrowed ever so slightly and the grip on his sword changed with it, the blood on his cheeks coming from his eyes drying up and sizzling away from the heat of the flames escaping his lips.
Without saying another word, he bounded forward with blistering speed, his opponent reacting in kind by using one of her Blood Demon Techniques to spawn an interlocking web of her sash that threatened to shred him to pieces with an interweaving barrage from all sides.
"Hinokami Kagura: Heki-ra no Ten." uttered Tanjirō, his blade becoming consumed with a raging inferno as he swung the blade in a circular motion, cleaving through every single sash that would've skewered him with ease.
"Oww! What is this pain?!" thought Daki as she reared back in pain, a loud sizzling noise coming from her sashes where they were cut. "The parts that got slashed, it feels like they're burning...I can't regenerate fast enough!"
Tanjirō's dead-calm expression remained steadfast as he ran through Daki's twitching sashes, the Upper Moon opening her eyes and gasping when she saw him practically right on top of her. In that split second, she couldn't react in time to counter him, because she couldn't sense a single drop of bloodlust from the young man. Even though he was right in front of her, it was as if he was completely invisible.
"Come out, now." Tanjirō murmured as he then coated his free arm in his blood and plunging his hand straight into the center of Daki's chest, above her breasts.
A cough escaped Daki's lungs as she felt her body wither from the blow, her legs quaking beneath her as she felt Tanjirō dig deep into her body and find what he was looking for. With a mighty heave, Tanjirō physically pulled out an entirely new person from inside of her body and fling him off to the right, their body striking the adjacent building and creating a huge explosion of wood and debris.
He then stepped back from Daki to let her collapse to her knees and cough up blood aggressively, the hole in her chest healing itself in a couple of seconds while Tanjirō turned his attention to the figure he had pulled out of her. The wind rushed around him and his sword came up to block the sickles of the person he had thrown, which was revealed to be a tall man with black hair that sharply cut off into green around the crown of his head. Tattooed over his eyes were the kanji for "Upper Moon Six" as well, something that Tanjirō had known from the very start.
"How in the hell did you know I was here, man? What the hell is your problem, staring a blood battle like this with Hashira here?" the man asked, Tanjirō saying nothing at first before he pushed back the person's sickles and stared him down.
"This guy's been distracting me from killing the humans, Onii-chan!" cried Daki, the man glancing down at her as he helped her to her feet with a sigh.
"If he was giving you that much trouble, you should've just asked for my help…"
"Shut up! I wanted to handle it on my own."
Tanjirō didn't bother to listen to the two apparent siblings argue with one another as he lowered his sword and breathed out more flames out of the sides of his mouth, catching their attention with the revival of his bloodlust.
"Muzan-sama ordered me to kill both of you." Tanjirō said in a cold, almost dead tone, the two demon siblings' eyes widening at the mention of their master's name out loud.
Hearing that he wanted them dead was one surprise, as well as the very mention of his name too, but what shocked them even more was how Tanjirō didn't get self-mutilated by Muzan's curse like all demons would who spoke his name outside of his presence.
"What the fuck, man...you're not dying? How are you even a demon, man?" asked the male demon as he stood protectively in front of his sister, who clung to him like a little child in a surprising change in personality.
"Gyūtarō-nii, this guy is different, he-"
Tanjirō moved in the blink of an eye, his sword once again bursting into flames as he attacked the siblings at the same time, forcing them to fight back with their own techniques in tandem with one another to counter Tanjirō's ferocious onslaught spurred on by bloodlust.
As this was happening, Shinbou and Kanao were at a total loss for words with the sight they were witnessing. The two siblings and Tanjirō going head to head in a battle to the death, was this how demons fought with one another? Even Tengen was unable to say anything about the situation, as were his two wives, who stood behind them with looks of horrified awe on their face. Zenitsu and Inosuke could only look at one another and wonder how in the world their friend had turned into what they were witnessing.
Shinbou slowly glanced up at Tengen, the two Hashira meeting eye to eye with the same unspoken question in their minds. Should they even intervene in this situation? What would they even gain if they did?
Another deafening explosion rocked the Red Light District, and they watched as a storm of crescent moon-shaped blades soared into the air from Tanjirō's blade as he fought the two siblings with everything he had. His body had been struck several times by their attacks, but the poison that Gyūtarō used did nothing to slow him down, and every injury he sustained when not protected by his armor was healed almost instantly.
"The fuck man, that technique...that's Upper Moon One's stuff, man. Did that guy train you? Is that what you were doing, huh?" Gyūtarō questioned as he and Daki landed on their feet side by side again, the silent Tanjirō landing across from them. "Come on, answer me, maaan! Hmmm? Hmmmmmm? And you never even answered my earlier question, man."
"...I've already figured out how to kill both of you." Tanjirō said as he sheathed his sword, the flames escaping from his lips pausing for a moment to allow his glowing eyes to be the only thing they saw under the light of the moon.
"Oh really, how?" asked Daki in a snarky tone, her devilish grin doing nothing to Tanjirō.
"Cutting both of your heads off at the same time."
Tanjirō's eyes then widened and he vanished, both Daki and Gyūtarō losing track of him entirely. Not a single bit of bloodlust was around them, not even the tiniest hint. Did he disappear into thin air? Did he run away. All they felt was the breeze around them, before Daki happened to glance over her shoulder and found Tanjirō standing perfectly still behind him, his blade out and dripping with blood.
She opened her mouth as if to say something, before her eyes rolled upward and her body fell forward at the same time as her brother's, their heads rolling off their bodies and down onto the roof a few feet away. Resting there on their sides, staring eye to eye, the two siblings were utterly shocked at the complete lack of awareness of Tanjirō cutting their heads off.
With a quick swipe through the air, Tanjirō cleaned his blade of their blood and inspected it momentarily before returning it to its sheath just in time for the two siblings to start yelling and arguing with one another about what they should have done and what either of them could have done differently. They bickered and argued with one another as their bodies disintegrated into ash, before finally there was nothing left of them in this world. For some reason Tanjirō felt something in his chest, a familiarity that related to the two siblings, but he just couldn't quite place it. He blinked once as his demonic features began to recede and return to their original state, with the horns shrinking and his hair turning back, before he sensed several presences approaching him from behind.
"Tanjirō! Tanjirō!" cried out a female's voice, the slayer unsure who it could belong to until feet landed on the roof behind him.
It was Shinobu, with Tengen, Kanao, Inosuke and Zenitsu hot on her tails. As soon as they had seen him decapitate the two demons, she had instantly ran from their vantage point to him, blindly disregarding any dangers that could result from approaching the young man. Now that she was just a few feet away from him, she could see up close just how much he had changed since she had last seen him, from his outfit to the way he looked far more athletic than before. While having receded once his transformation had waned, his hair was still longer than six months prior, and the horns that were sprouting from his forehead were something new entirely.
"Kochō, stay back! We don't know if he's friend or foe!" barked Tengen as he held his blades up, his eyes narrowing at Tanjirō.
"Tanjirō...you remember me, right? You remember us, right? It's Kanao, and Zenitsu, and Inosuke!" exclaimed Shinobu, once again disregarding Tengen's orders by taking a step forward.
"Gonpachiro, get your head out of your ass! It's us!" added Inosuke while throwing his fist up into the air.
"Mmpnnh…?"
Tanjirō's eyes widened a fraction of an inch when he heard the muffled voice of Nezuko, the smaller girl having climbed out of her box on Shinobu's back in order to join everyone. She stood close by the Insect Hashira on her right side, a worried expression on her face as she looked at her brother for the first time in half a year.
He felt that strange tingle in the back of his head again, stronger this time, enough to make him actually loosen up his shoulders somewhat and scratch the back of his neck like it was some sort of itch. Shinobu held her breath, anxiously awaiting for what Tanjirō was going to say. She wanted to hear him say yes, so much so that it was killing her inside to have to wait to hear it. She wanted him to turn around and offer up some kind of stupid apology to them, or anything that could let her see him smile again. She wanted him back with her, with Kanao, his sister. She wanted him.
"I'm...sorry...I don't know...who any of you are…" Tanjirō mumbled as he turned his head around slowly, glancing back at them and causing Shinobu to cover her mouth and gasp at what she saw.
Just from the kanji of "Upper Moon" that was visible from the eye he was showing them, she felt her heart tighten and come close to shattering into millions of pieces. It hurt so much that it took every ounce of her willpower plus some to not break down crying right then and there.
"I...have to go."
"Tanjirō, wait!"
Before any of them could do anything, Tanjirō was gone. He vanished into thin air, disappearing entirely from their view. Tengen looked around from left to right, attempting to catch any sort of glimpse of the young man, but found nothing. Even Inosuke tried to detect him with his exceptional senses, and when that didn't work, Zenitsu tried his hearing for even the slightest hint of Tanjirō's whereabouts. Nothing came back.
"Kochō...you know what this means, right? Those eyes he had, he-" started Tengen after returning his swords to where they were on his back, before he was instantly shushed by the smallest Hashira.
"That wasn't Tanjirō...not even close."
"What do you mean? That clearly was the bow, but even more of a demon than before."
"That wasn't Tanjirō. Those weren't his eyes, nor his voice. It wasn't him!"
Shinobu lowered her head and allowed her bangs to hid her face from the sides, her shoulders dropping in such a way that Kanao had to go to her side and put a hand on her back to see if she was okay. With an inaudible sniffle, a single tear dropped from the tip of Shinobu's nose after leaving her eye as her sadness consumed her heart.
"It...wasn't him…"
A/N Wow, what a chapter...for those of you who are fans of Daki and Gyūtarō, I apologize for cutting their content so short like this. The focus wasn't on them, and with Tanjirō as the way he is...the impact their interactions wouldn't have had the same effect on him as it did in the manga. Hope you can understand! Outside of that though, with everything else...things aren't getting any better, aren't they? :X Our poor girl Shinobu just can't catch a break, and neither can Nezuko...but! Please, do not fret. Trust me, this will all work out in the end.
The pairing will not change. It will all work itself out, I can tell you that. You'll just have to wait and see how that happens over the next few chapters as we segway right into the second half of this combined arc, from the Red Light District into this next one I like to call the Retrieval arc. How will that play out? You'll just have to wait and see :}
ALSO YOUR BOY GOT A "B" ON HIS SENIOR THESIS LESGOOOOO :DDD
Please leave a fav, follow, and a review telling me what you thought of this chapter! I certainly did, it was a blast! I'll see you guys in the next one soon, where I plan to have a very special guest from another thing I've fallen in love with make a cameo appearance to help our guys out :} Peace boys!
Translation(s):
Tsuki no kokyū, Ni no kata: Shuka no Rōgetsu
- Moon Breathing, Second Form: Pearl Flowers Moongazing
Oto no kokyū, Ichi no kata: Todoroki
- Sound Breathing, First Form: Roar
Tsuki no kokyū, Ichi no kata: Yamizuki - Yoi no miya
- Moon Breathing, First Form: Dark Moon - Evening Palace
Hinokami Kagura: Enbu
- Dance of the Fire God: Dance
Hinokami Kagura: Retsujitsu Kōkyō
- Dance of the Fire God: Raging Sun
Tsuki no kokyū, Shichi no kata: Yakkyō - Zukibae
- Moon Breathing, Seventh Form: Mirror of Misfortune - Moonlit
Kedamono no kokyū, Roku no kiba: Ran gui gami
- Beast Breathing, Sixth Fang: Pallisade Bite
Hinokami Kagura: Heki-ra no Ten
- Dance of the Fire God: Clear Blue Sky
